The North American Biometrics market provides a comprehensive technology, competition and distribution trend analysis for various biometric technologies such as fingerprint, face recognition, iris recognition, hand geometry, voice verification, signature verification and other emerging technologies. Revenue forecast for all technologies have been provided for total North American region. Various drivers for growth have been analyzed to identify opportunities in the marketplace. The study also provides revenue forecast and vertical market analysis in addition to analyzing application sectors and technology trends.

Acceptance of the technology is crucial. Many end users are still unaware of the technology in terms of the benefits and what the technology does. Moreover, there is still privacy concerns; for example, a connotation to criminal identification for fingerprint biometrics. Vendors have been trying to show that an actual fingerprint is not taken, but rather key features of the fingerprint are recorded by the biometric reader.

Face recognition and iris recognition systems are comparatively more expensive than the fingerprint recognition technology. Though the prices have declined considerably due to increased competition, the cost remains a challenge for the vendors. Investment in R&D and innovating technology that is cost-effective and highly accurate is expected to boost the adoption of biometrics technology. Companies that are able to maintain their competitive pricing are likely to have more projects and gain revenue.

There are still many applications ranging from simple to complex projects where biometrics can be a suitable choice. However, these applications are not being served due to the gap between the products offered and the users needs in terms of cost effectiveness and easily implemented solutions.

Hygiene issues have been a challenge for the biometrics markets. To press ones finger or thumb on a reader that is used by many strangers was considered unhealthy. So, vendors innovate the contactless modes of biometric identification. However, there is a limit to the number of applications that can use contactless modes of biometric identification because of the size of the reader. Consumer electronic goods such as mobile phones and PDAs would suffer, as it would not be economical to have a contactless reader against a standard fingerprint swipe.

Government initiatives and regulatory activities have played a pivotal role in driving the adoption of biometrics in the North American biometrics market. IDENT-IAFIS, USPASS, NIJ, TWIC, and BLADE are some of the biometrics programs that are currently being evaluated or used worldwide.

* IDENT-IAFIS: Both the automated biometric identification system and the integrated automated fingerprint identification system are being used by the US Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice to compare ten-print digital finger scans against a central database that has nearly millions of prints stored by the FBI.* USPASS: The US passenger accelerated service system is being used by the US customs and border protection to reduce immigration inspection processing by validating the claimed identity of an individual using the hand geometry biometrics.* NIJ: The National Institute of Justice is evaluating the use of face recognition technology to identify suspects and improve security and officer safety.* TWIC: The Transportation Worker Identification Credential is being used by the Transportation Security Administration and the US Coast Guard to secure areas of port facilities and outer continental shelf facilities and vessels.* BLADE: Biometrics for logical access development and execution is being used by the State Department to allow only authorized individuals to gain access to the workstations using a smart card that stores an authorized users fingerprints.